BCBusiness

courtesy of lions gate hospital foundation february 2016 BCBusiness 49 Leaders Award from the B.C. Construction Labour Relations Association in 2013, and the Best Business Award from the North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce in 2011. "When word about the donation got out, it was like the BC Lions winning the Grey Cup," says Clyde Scollan, president of the B.C. CLRA. "Everyone in the construction industry felt good." Outside the spotlight, Myers is every bit the unassuming titan. He is small, and slightly over his goal weight of 160 pounds, as he hasn't been able to exercise since breaking seven ribs last winter. (He was salting his West Vancouver driveway at 6:30 a.m. and slipped.) He answers his own phone and welcomes visitors to his oŽce with little formality ("Just call 'rst," he advises). According to the company's chief estimator, Tony Kanjer, a four-decade Keith Plumbing employee, Myers is intensely aware of people's feel- ings. "I don't think he's ever 'red anybody," he says. "I don't think he could." If uncomfortable speaking in public, Myers is chatty and unguarded in private. From his second-f loor ofšice, he points out several other buildings that he owns. "Seemed to be wher- ever I went, I had a hankering to buy up the neighbours," he says. "I'm old-fashioned though: we don't borrow money. I sleep better that way." Myers started building his real estate portfolio with money from his paper route. He deliv- ered the Vancouver Sun in Lynn Valley, earning a penny per paper. He bought a 33-by- 120-foot lot for $250 in Lynn Valley when he was still a teen- ager with the proceeds from that route and started working at Keith Plumbing and Heating as an apprentice plumber when he was 19 or 20. ("You keep asking me dates," he says. "I don't want to be pinned down!") While his father, a machinist, could šix anything, Myers claims not to be mechanically minded. He wasn't a talented apprentice— instead staying late to 'nish a job and not telling anyone how long it took. Still, he was quickly promoted to foreman and then estimator. He didn't like the way the owners were running the business, so he decided to set up his own and gave notice; in response, they o§ered him a management contract with an option to purchase. In 1970, Myers bought Keith Plumbing and Heating outright. Around that time, strikes and lockouts involving the 15 unions of the B.C. construction indus- try were frequent. Along with other contractors, Myers helped found the B.C. CLRA, aimed at bringing stability to the indus- try. The association became a model for other provinces, and Myers became a well-respected negotiator. He recalls those days of contract talks, which would last for days and nights on end. "You get to read people after a while," he says, recalling watch- ing the union leader pace back and forth during a marathon bargaining session. "I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out some change and put it on the table and said, 'That's all the money there is.' Everybody laughed like hell. He knew the end was coming, but he didn't know an honourable way to get at it." It was about being fair, he says, but also about building rap- port with the other side. As he was trying to build his business, he faced other chal- lenges. His wife, Millie, who died several years ago, was su§ering from schizophrenia. He spent years trying to get medical help for her, taking her in and out of Riverview, and then raised his four children alone. One well-meaning cousin o§ered to adopt the youngest one. "He said, 'You're not going to make it, Paul,'" he recalls, suddenly struck with emotion. "I said, 'I'll make it.'" Today, he says his six grandchildren and one great- grandchild are the most impor- tant part of his life. While Myers did not relish the public attention for his land- mark donation to Lions Gate, he has enjoyed the smaller ges- tures of thanks. On his desk is a framed letter with an invita- tion for lunch from his former lawyer, Robert Jenkins, now a B.C. Supreme Court judge. The business manager of the plumb- ers and pipešitters union, Joe Shayler, took him out for break- fast and gave him a gold watch, the standard gift for 50 years in the union. And then there was a special note from a long-forgot- ten acquaintance with words of congratulations. "He wrote, 'You probably don't remember me, but you were my submanager when we delivered newspapers.' That was neat. That was cute." ■ While Myers did not relish the public attention for his landmark donation to Lions Gate, he has enjoyed the smaller gestures of thanks. On his desk is a framed letter with an invitation for lunch from his former lawyer, Robert Jenkins, now a B.C. Supreme Court judge. The business manager of the plumbers and pipefitters union, Joe Shayler, took him out for breakfast and gave him a gold watch, the standard gift for 50 years in the union PUBLIC THANKS (From left) Mike Nader, VCH-Coastal chief operating officer; Lions Gate Hospital Foundation president Judy Savage; and Paul Myers

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